Life to Art

Iris

In Spring, the bulbs that have been seemingly asleep underground, poke their heads up through the crusty earth. Where I live, it’s usually the crocus first. Then the daffodils. Next, the tulips. Finally, the irises. Several years ago, I planted tulips and irises along the path in the front yard. Probably not the best decision as there’s a lot of hopping over them by me and any guests who come to visit. That said, they are there and make their appearance when conditions are right.

This painting was actually based on a photo of a little iris growing beside this path. The tightness with which it held its bud form was noted. The very next day, I was shocked (in a good way) to see that it had burst open overnight.

iris

Like a trumpet sound, it was impossible to ignore. A beautiful declaration to be noticed and appreciated!

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A bulb holds promise, doesn’t it? Years ago, I moved into a house in the San Francisco Bay Area with my family. When we had first seen the house, before we purchased it, I had noticed the abundance of flowers in the backyard…it must have been springtime. Months later, the flowers had come and gone. Digging in the backyard, I found all of these gnarly brown flaky things in the soil. I had no idea that I was tossing bulbs away, the flowers that I had witnessed in the spring. When I think back on this, I feel sad…I didn’t know.

These days I plant bulbs and look forward to the glorious gift packaged within each tight little knot as it prepares to share its glory!

The garden, nature, is a source of inspiration to artists across time. It’s no surprise. Witnessing beauty, our hearts are uplifted. The artist finds a way to render this beauty…there are so many ways. I wonder what it is that leads one from observation of beauty to the desire to paint or portray it. Maybe it’s a desire to preserve it and the feeling that it gave when you first witnessed it. Or maybe it’s a desire to share it with others. Perhaps it’s instinctual to want to capture it in an artistic way–to claim it more deeply. I wonder.

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Sheltering in place, many more people are buying plants from the garden center. There’s nowhere to go, nothing usual to do — creating a garden…often a food garden with flowers to beautify seems like a good idea. Seeking the good in the present circumstances through a return to the soil.

That Feeling of Spring

Splashes of color,
drips, droplets, dabs,
sprinkles, sprays
–marks, translucents,
opaques, frivolity, whimsy,
abstract, realism,
imagination, fantasy,
figures disappearing
into a mist…

When making art, you can create what you desire, design and allow.
The artist can choose to be detailed, intricate and precise. The artist can choose to be abstract as heck and expressive. And there is everything in between.
That is why I believe that

EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST!

As I also believe that everyone has a hidden poet (because everyone has a voice), I also believe that everyone has a hidden artist. Perhaps one who has been shamed into
hiding, but she’s there just the same, waiting to be invoked, invited, induced to come out and play.

That is what this painting was to me. This was painted at the beginning of my discovery of art as a possible way to express myself. Playing on Aquabord, a substrate that was new to me, the paint flowed in a surprising way. Yes, substrates make a difference as to how the paint behaves. Substrate is the surface on which the artist paints. There are many types of substrates these days! Sometimes, any substrate works. I’ve painted on gessoed cardboard.

With so many online opportunities to learn while playing–that is the perspective to take when you are beginning to paint or painting after many years of not painting. Or at any level of experience. Play and learn. Make many mistakes. And carry on playing, learning and practicing. Like any practice, you have to do it daily. Best to plan it into your day.

Mermaids II

If I were a mermaid living in the ocean, I’d be angry with humans. The ocean is, afterall, my home. I want my environment to be pristine. For myself and all the variety of wondrous sea creatures who also live here. When my environment is polluted by the ignorance and greed of humans, well I can’t just get up and walk away, can I? The integral relationship of the ocean with the moon and our ecosystem that keeps things “working” is being drastically damaged by destructive human activities. Witnessing the devastation that humans have wreaked on my home, I’m wondering what I can do to wake them up!

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As we get more and more distanced from nature, we are going to feel the effects. Because, as John Muir has said, “Nature includes us!”

As sophisticated as we might think we are, as much as we think we’ve conquered nature and that we are civilized above and beyond the natural world…that’s false thinking. We are nature, nature is us. We have a biology and so does the earth and the sea and the whole ecology in which we are included. I’m likely preaching to the choir here!

This mermaid reminds me of a warrioress. She is both tender and tough when necessary. She is ready to go to battle for her home, the ocean.

mermaid.1

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In 1995, an amazing film was released, The Secret of Roan Inish. The music was haunting, the scenery enchanting, the acting authentic and the story–magical and mythological. This is where I first heard of “the Selkie. And, I feel that the sea is portrayed as a character itself. Effective personification!

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The phrase “If I were” is a good way to begin writing. Especially when you’re feeling stuck…”If I were…” Those three little words open the door to imagination and possibility. Go ahead, WRITE!

Mermaids I

Jane Davenport is an artist, teacher, author and inspiring creative woman with a lovely online presence.

Not long after I began painting, I discovered her. She has a signature drawing style. Her paintings are imaginative, whimsical and expert. I took a few workshops with her, one of which was called Vitamin Sea: Mermaids! Jane took the participants on an immersive journey into the discovery and painting of mermaids. The Mermaid Queen below is my mixed media piece. Mermaid Queen1

Following is an interesting excerpt about the Selkie. In many tales, Mermaids and Selkies are interchangeable. I appreciate this type of mythology. Typically, mythology is based in some truth.

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Then, there are the manatees, an endangered species. Sailors at sea–I’m guessing they were a bit delirious–spotting a manatee sunning on a rock sometimes mistook it for a mermaid!

What is your belief around mermaids, fictional or factual…magical or mythological?

I wonder if mermaids believe in us.

Following a Feeling–Home

This abstract collage painting…inspired by a feeling of what it is to come home. I shelter at home now. And my home is also inside of me. I leave home, walk a path in the world. There is a sense of the path unfolding as I take the next step. Walking into what isn’t known. I go so far and then, I turn around and return home.

Home is a word that evokes strong feelings for many of us. The home of my childhood, the home of my body, the house or dwelling where I live now. The home of my community, the home of my state, the country…the neighboring countries, the earth, in this galaxy, universe. Home is both provincial and expansive.

I crafted and facilitated a creative writing workshop on homecoming in order to deeply explore this theme.

One story goes that Winnie the Pooh was lost in the woods with Piglet and Rabbit. They wandered in circles for quite some time. Rabbit got impatient and left Winnie the Pooh and Piglet to find their own way home. Winnie the Pooh had a north star sort of experience. He heard his twelve honey pots calling him…when things got very quiet (rabbit’s incessant talk had ceased), Pooh heard the calling and followed it home to the sweetness in his cupboards.

pooh, piglet, rabbit

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We’re in a state of suspension with sheltering at home. There are times we experience anxiety, stress, frustration, impatience. There are many levels of coming home. How do you bring yourself to a deeper level of homecoming (the home within) when you are compelled by challenging thoughts and uncomfortable feelings?

Clarissa Pinkola Estes says that returning home “is not necessarily an overland and arduous journey.“ Some ways of going home are mundane, some are divine. She cites a few examples “…Rereading passages of books and single poems that have touched (you). Spending even a few minutes near a river, a stream, a creek. Lying on the ground in dappled light. Being with a loved one…Sitting on the porch shelling something, knitting something, peeling something. Walking or driving for an hour, any direction, then returning. Getting on a bus, destination unknown…”

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What are five things that call you home or return you to your center when you are lost in the woods?

Giraffe

As a girl growing up in San Francisco, an occasional treat was a visit to the San Francisco Zoo. While I don’t support animals in captivity, I have to admit that while a child, it was an opportunity to see an animal up close that I might otherwise never see. I remember the giraffe, tall, lanky, that neck that was so long, seemingly fragile yet strong. I have an image of the giraffe, splayed legs as he stooped to pick up a piece of fruit on the ground.

The giraffe has a very large heart, larger than any other land mammal. The biological reason could be due to the lengthy map of a giraffe’s body. I know so little. However, I have read that the giraffe, though not sanctioned as such, is an endangered species. This saddens me.

In the wild, a giraffe can live for 25 years. In captivity, it varies.

giraffe

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I honestly don’t know why this giraffe is blue. Perhaps that was the color on my brush at the time and I didn’t want to waste it. So onto the canvas
it went. What frequently happens is that I see an image in a work in progress, in this case the giraffe, and I bring it forward. I create a background for it.

Though not realistic, this giraffe certainly has personality.

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In a sense, with this sheltering at home, we have an odd opportunity. We are experiencing a time that seems outside of time. For those of who are blessed to have enough and to have our health, we have this sort of break where we can engage our imagination. How could things be different? How could things be better? We are so yearning to return to “normal” whatever that means to you. Really, was normal so great? What about our lives and times could be reimagined? What could be made better? Not only for some of us, but for all of us?

I read that the Navajo Tribes are facing life and death challenges with the Covid 19 virus. Most of these people don’t have running water and we know that washing your hands, cleanliness is crucial to preventing the spread of the virus. I’ve read that the federal government has allotted some monies to help them but the Tribe can’t access the monies due to bureaucracy. Really! In a time of emergency direct assistance is blocked!

Can we imagine this scenario a lot better? Shouldn’t every household in the US have running water, at the very least?

On the altruistic side, 21 medical personnel from UCSF in San Francisco have traveled to the Navajo Nations to give medical support through its Department of Medicine’s Health, Equity, Action and Leadership initiative. Doctors, nurses and other health care workers in the two-year fellowship assist with health care needs in rural and disadvantaged communities around the world. Thank you.

Alright, I step off the soapbox (for now)…but this has brought up something I feel passionate about. What are you feeling passionate about as you shelter in place? How can you reimagine it better?

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A sweet video clip of this beautiful animal.

Horse

This horse painting appears to be total whimsy. However, it appeared at a time when I felt the wind had been knocked out of me, out of many of us. It was the occasion of the 2016 presidential election in the United States. The helplessness and shock that I felt with the election of someone whose values were so opposite to my own, to so many of us.

The one word on this mixed media piece is WISDOM. I felt that this was what was needed more than anything. This seemed to be lacking in the newly elected administration. I painted and collaged this white whimsical horse as a way to cope with what was ahead. As I prayed for a leader who loves the earth, mankind and all of our relations.

Horse1

In one sense, this could be seen as a political cartoon or a bit of satire. After the election of 2016, things were (and continue to be) extremely serious.

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Picking up a brush, pencil, paints, clay, charcoal, pastels, watercolors–any creative tool can help you to cope with what is challenging. It can give you a field of expression when you feel powerless or without a voice.

I have several art journals. They are a private expression of things that seem too large to manage; the word could be unwieldy. Words and images blend on these pages to express what I feel and have trouble sharing with others. Or understanding myself.

What about you? Do you have a journal for your writing and art? Or several? Use them.